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I did read off to you some of the areas of teaching that have come into this fellowship over the last few months. And I told you that I would give you an opportunity to request which subject I would review. Does anybody have a specific area they would like me to expound upon?
The Old and New Covenant; the crucifixion of Christ; the first and second generation of Satan; the Kingdom of God versus the Kingdom of Heaven; Jesus, the bloodless sacrifice; Jesus saying, Go and sin no more; or the unforgivable sin. Does anybody have a request on any of those areas, or any question on any area? Otherwise, I will choose a subject.
COMMENT: [INAUDIBLE]
PASTOR VITALE: You are requesting the Old and New Covenant?
COMMENT: [INAUDIBLE]
The Old & The New Covenant
We have had a request that I review the Old and the new Covenant. Actually, brethren, there is just one covenant between God and man. This covenant is in two stages. In the Church, we hear it called the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. But actually, it is just one covenant. What is a covenant? It is a contract. It is a contract between God and man, a contract where God promises to do something that man cannot do, yet there is something for man to do because a contract or a covenant implies that there are two or more people, everyone agreeing to do something to accomplish a specific goal.
You may recall, in our recent study of the Book of Zephaniah, we saw in chapter 1 that Jehovah was making promises which actually sounded like a legal document. He was saying, I, Jehovah, promise to deliver this man, this humanity, out of his fallen condition. And He goes on to say, This is how I am going to do it. I covenant to do it this way. I covenant to raise you up out of your sins. I covenant to wash away your sins. I covenant to forgive your sins.
And what is it that man has to do? Man has very little to offer God. He basically has to agree that God is righteous and man is unrighteous. In this hour, we are required to be water baptized as a sign of our faith because anybody could get water baptized; all you have to do is get dunked under the water. If you cannot do that, you have really got a problem. Jesus says, If you just agree to get dunked under the water, I will do the rest. If you get dunked under the natural water, I will dunk you under the water of My Spirit, and you shall receive everlasting life.
So it is just one covenant in two stages. What are the two stages of Jehovah's covenant with man? The first stage; the implication is man is fallen. The whole human race is lost in sin. None is righteous, no, not one. What is the proof we are not righteous, no, not one?
COMMENT: We die.
PASTOR VITALE: We all die. We all die, brethren. Science says that infants begin to die the minute that they are born. The aging process, which results in death, begins the minute the infant is born. We are all cursed unto death because of sin. That has become a dirty word in the Church today, sin, S-I-N. We are all guilty.
And when was the whole world pronounced guilty? Does anybody know? Because, where there is no knowledge of sin, sin is not imputed. If you really, really do not know you are sinning, God is not looking for you to punish you. When was the whole world pronounced guilty of sin? Do you know when?
COMMENT: [INAUDIBLE]
PASTOR VITALE: No, no. When God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, the whole world was pronounced guilty of sin. Why? Because the law of God came into the world. From the moment the law of God comes into the world, everybody is responsible for it. Where there is no knowledge of sin, you are not held accountable. To whom much is given, much is required. The more knowledge you have of sin, the greater the reaction, or the greater the punishment, if you will, for breaking the law.
That is why, brethren, the Lord is not after the heathen. You have to send out a memo to the Church. God is not judging the heathen in this hour. He is judging you. You, who are running around pointing your finger at the world, you are looking in the wrong place. God is not after the heathen; He is after you. That is what my Bible says. And Paul goes on to say the reason you are so aware of everybody else's sin is that you do the same thing. That is what my Bible says. That is how you know that guy is a sinner, because you do the same thing.
So we see that the Lord has promised to save mankind from his sins, and He is doing it in two stages. It is just one covenant, but He is saving us from our sin in two stages. The first stage, we call it the imputed anointing. It appears in the Book of Zechariah, where the prophet speaks about Beauty and Bands. It is a parable in Zechariah, I believe, chapter 11. It turns out to be a discussion of the two stages of God's covenant with mankind. The first one is called grace, forgiveness of sins. Not because you have done anything so great, not because you are a cute little girl or you have done anything to be worthy of it, but God has chosen to forgive your sin because Hw has promised to restore you from your fallen condition. He therefore comes to you while you are yet in your sins.
Now, we have some very well-meaning people who have wrong thoughts in their mind. They think that you have to get cleaned up before God can come to save you from your sins. You have got it backwards. God goes right to the sinner, right where you are, right in the midst of your sin, and will convict you and bring you back into relationship with Him. You do not have to clean your act up before you are reconciled unto Christ because, if that were true, none of us would make it because none of us has the power to clean our act up.
So He goes right down into hell and meets us right where we are, and He forgives us right where we are, and He joins himself to us right where we are. And He starts to work in our life to get us out of hell. All you have to do is cry, Jesus, help me, right in the midst of your filth, and He is right there.
So the first stage of Jehovah's covenant with mankind is reconciliation with God, a return to a relationship with the creator of the universe. Well, what happened? How come there was no relationship with the God of the universe? Sin, brethren, separates us from God. God does not hear the prayers of the unrighteous.
But behold, I show you a mystery. It is written that, no matter how bad things get, God will always make a way of escape. So behold, I show you a mystery. God does not hear the prayers of the unrighteous. But the minute an unrighteous man humbles himself and cries out, Jesus, help me, that prayer comes under a cover of righteousness. If you can hear it, hear it. If you cannot, I suggest you pray about it.
The second you humble yourself before the Lord Jesus Christ, and confess your powerlessness, and confess that He is God and that He is the only one that can help you, at that moment, your prayer is heard. In the midst of the filthiest activities that you could possibly be in, when your heart turns towards God, you come under a cover of righteousness, a spiritual cover of righteousness by which or through which He receives you into relationship with himself. And this experience is called reconciliation.
And behold, I show you another mystery that boggles the minds of the Pharisees; that it is not at all uncommon that someone involved in a very filthy lifestyle has this experience. And they turn to God, in the midst of their filthy lifestyle, and the Lord does not bring them out of that filthy lifestyle immediately. I have seen people turn to God, and they still drink. I have seen people turn to God; women turn to God; they are still messed up with men. I have seen homosexuals turn to God, and they are still messed up. And it takes a while for the Holy Ghost to work in their life, to work them out of their ungodly lifestyle.
And we see the Pharisee standing right there with a whole bag of stones, ready to kill these poor, desperate people that are desperately crying out for help. And Jesus is helping them, and all the Pharisees are trying to kill them.
God help us and forgive us our sins. Brethren, if you do not forgive your brother, you shall not be forgiven. How can you say you love God, whom you have not seen, if you cannot love your brother, whom you have seen? Love is not a feeling. Love is an action. It is respect; it is honor; it is recognition; it is freedom. There is liberty where the Spirit of God is.
So we are speaking about the Lord's covenant with mankind. The first stage of it is reconciliation. You, who are lost in sin, there has been made available to you, who are lost in sin, an opportunity to have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, to talk with Him, to walk with Him, to learn from Him, to be with Him, to do with Him, to become like Him.
And from the moment you enter into that relationship with Him, He says to you, When I look at you, I perceive you to be righteous. And I will treat you like a righteous man because I know that, in due season, I shall have made you righteous. But right now, you are not righteous. I know that you are not righteous, but I am going to treat you like you are righteous.
What does that mean? I am going to stop imputing your sins unto you. What does that mean? It means that, the sins that you have in your life, I am going to bring them out from under the reaping and sowing judgment, which is executed by Satan. What does that mean? Every sin in your life is legal ground for Satan to destroy you. I am going to say, Satan, you cannot destroy this person anymore because of their sin.
But I am going to use the reaping and sowing; they have sown sin. And when it comes their time to reap the consequences of that sin, instead of using it to destroy them, I am going to use it as a teaching experience. I am going to give them an opportunity to repent and use it as a teaching experience for them. And I am going to give them what they need to ascend up out of this spiritual cesspool of sin. And I am going to restore them, in reality, to righteousness.
So let us put it this way. The first stage of Jehovah's covenant with man is a condition of sinlessness which has not yet been accomplished. It has not yet been accomplished. But Jesus says, I call you righteous because I know that I have the power to make you righteous. Therefore, I have granted gifts unto you. I have granted privileges unto you as if you were righteous. But I know that you are not righteous. It is just the Pharisees that read the Bible wrong and say he who was born of God cannot sin, and they are the biggest sinners going, walking around saying they cannot sin. How silly.
The first stage of the covenant between God and man is that He will grant you reconciliation, a relationship with him, and the status of a righteous man. You now can receive benefits that only a righteous man can receive. But Jesus knows you are not righteous yet. The first stage of God's covenant with man, some people call it the Old Covenant.
The second stage of Jehovah's covenant with man, some people call it the New Covenant, is when this condition of righteousness, which is a spiritual condition, becomes a reality for you, where you transfer over from the Lord treating you like you are righteous, when you are really not righteous, to a spiritual condition where you become cleansed, spiritually, of all spiritual filth in your spirit and your soul, when you become purified, when you become converted, and you are actually made righteous. That is the second stage of Jehovah's covenant with man. Some people call it the New Covenant. It is an actual, experiential, realistic condition of sinlessness.
Old Covenant, New Covenant. Old covenant, imputed righteousness; the Lord gives you a Band-Aid until He does the job for you. New Covenant, actual sinlessness. And there is only one evidence of true sinlessness, which is that you stop dying. Sign of the first stage of Jehovah's covenant with man, or the old covenant, a sign of it: faith in God, an active faith in God which brings blessings into your life. Sign of the second stage, or the new covenant: everlasting life, not after this body dies, brethren, but in this flesh.
Now, we see that the first stage of Jehovah's covenant with man comes in two phases. It comes in two phases. This is a big confusion in the Church. To the best of my knowledge, the whole Church world, except for maybe a few scattered cells like we are, thinks that the Church is under the New Covenant. Why? Because we have a relationship with Jesus Christ, which we now know to be reconciliation, and things have radically changed from God's covenant with Israel. But, brethren, we are not under the New Covenant. How do I know that? We still die. And we still die because we still sin.
So we see that the Old Covenant, which is reconciliation, an opportunity to have a relationship with God, to walk with Him, talk with Him, benefit from His instructions, learn from Him, grow from Him, exists in two phases, the first phase to the Jew and the second phase to the Gentile.
Well, we know God is no respecter of persons. Why would he do it one way with the Jew and another way with the Gentile? Because, brethren, the first phase of the Old Covenant is to bring forth Messiah. How would you identify Messiah? Would anybody like to identify Messiah? What is Messiah?
COMMENT: A savior.
PASTOR VITALE: A savior? That is a nice word, savior. But if you are talking to someone who came from Mars, he is not going to know what a savior is.
COMMENT: [INAUDIBLE]
PASTOR VITALE: That sounds good, and that is what you hear in Pentecost. But what does it mean? Let us talk to people that do not know what it means.
COMMENT: Someone who does not know what sin is?
PASTOR VITALE: A savior. They do not know what savior means. What did you say? People who do not know what savior means. Did you want to say something?
COMMENT: A savior is someone who is taking us out of flesh and bringing us into spirit.
PASTOR VITALE: All of these answers are right. One of the things we try to do here is to learn to put these spiritual concepts in the simplest terms possible, that someone who never heard any of these words might stand a chance of understanding it.
So let me put it to you this way. What natural Israel did was give birth to, if you will, or bring forth one righteous man, one man who actually attained to a condition of spiritual righteousness, which was evidenced by His ability to rise from the dead. Let me say it again. Israel brought forth a savior, Messiah. And the definition of savior, Messiah, is a spiritually righteous man, which righteousness is evidenced by the inability of the authorities of this world to take His life.
Let me make it even simpler for you. Israel brought forth a man who could not be killed. A savior is a man, or the man, who arose out of Israel, which could not be killed. And the reason He could not die was because He had a spiritual nature which was without sin. I think most people could get at least something out of that.
So, brethren, once Messiah appeared in the earth and was sacrificed; how was He sacrificed? Was it His spiritual life that was sacrificed? Did His spiritual life die? No, His spiritual life did not die. His soul life died. The man Jesus was crucified. The man Jesus, the personality of Jesus of Nazareth, was the one that died. His soul life died. It is very clear in the Greek. If you just look up the words, it is very clear in the Greek.
Israel brought forth Messiah, a righteous man who could have lived for the life of the ages. But He gave up that life so that He could be converted into a spiritual form out of which He could rain upon the hearts of all of mankind, thereby spreading His ability to live forever to the entire human race.
Now, listen, we have one Old Covenant. It is dealing with men who are imperfect, men who are sinners, men who are sure to die, men to whom Jehovah has granted relationship despite the fact of their sin. And He treats humanity in one way before the first righteous man appears on the earth.
But as soon as the one righteous man appears, who gives up His soul life and becomes rain, which has the ability to seed the entire human race with righteousness or with the potential for righteousness; from the moment that change takes place - What change? Let me say it again.
In the first half, we had a human race which had no potential for righteousness whatsoever. But then one righteous man appeared and was converted into a form that could spread that potential for righteousness to the whole human race. From the moment that this event occurred, where the potential for righteousness was spread to the whole human race, Jehovah changed the form of His ministry to imperfect man.
Why? Because, in the first instance, they had no potential for righteousness. And in the second instance, the whole human race now has a potential for righteousness. It is like saying you give certain privileges to your 2-year-old and other privileges to your 14-year-old. When your child matures to a certain age, you treat them differently.
So we see the Old Covenant, or the first stage of Jehovah's covenant with mankind, in two phases, the first phase to the Jew, where there no general potential for the whole nation to become righteous, and the second phase, where we see the potential for righteousness imparted, or made available, to the entire human race.
And therefore, the walk becomes easier for those who are partakers of the second phase. It was very difficult living under the Old Covenant, having to sacrifice goats and bulls and go through the priests. We are told it was impossible to keep that law. But once righteousness appeared in the flesh, things became easier for humanity. And now, we are told to flee from fornication and from things strangled, and to keep what some people call the Golden Rule: Love. Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy mind, thy heart and thy soul, and thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
And now, in the second phase of the Old Covenant, we are not under the Levitical law, but we are under the law of the Holy Spirit. We are under the law of the Holy Spirit, which grants us the opportunity of repentance, an immediate restoration after repentance. Those are the two phases of, you can say the Old Covenant or the first stage of Jehovah's covenant with mankind.
The New Covenant, or the second stage of Jehovah's covenant with mankind, is the actual spiritual change of our being, which makes sinlessness a reality to us. And that, brethren, is painful. It requires a stripping of sin from us that can be likened to the stripping of the bark of a tree. It is painful, but it is doable. All things are possible in Christ. All things are possible in Christ.
Every Son that God receiveth, he scourgeth. Why? Why does He scourge us? Because we are filled with sin and error and wrong thinking and all kinds of filth in our spirit and in our soul. And He begins to strip us of everything that is offensive to the Kingdom of God.
Entering into the New Covenant, or the second stage of God's contract with mankind, is a process. It has a beginning, and the beginning of that process we have been calling it the conception of Christ. Does anybody know what the apostle James calls it? The engrafting of the Word.
Jesus is the seed; He is the Word of God. And the way He gets attached to us is that He is engrafted like a plant is engrafted, or like a branch of a tree is engrafted. Jesus of Nazareth was the only man in whom Christ was raised up from seed. Every one of us in this hour is receiving a cutting of the glorified life of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that cutting is being engrafted to our human spirit. That is the beginning of our journey into the imparted anointing, the end of which journey will result in our actual condition of sinlessness, which will result in everlasting life.
And whereas the Old Covenant, or the first stage of Jehovah's covenant with mankind, is joyful. It is usually very joyful, just as preschool and kindergarten is joyful, although I hear things have changed these days. When I was in kindergarten, the teacher used to play the piano, and we sang songs all day and danced around the maypole. I am told they are already teaching the children in kindergarten today.
But the first stage of the Old Covenant can be very pleasant for most people, singing and dancing and ministry and healing, to the soul, brethren. It makes your soul feel good. What is your soul? It is your emotions. The Old Covenant, or the first stage of Jehovah's covenant with man, makes your soul feel good. You feel good. But when you begin to enter into the New Covenant, that pleasure begins to change to pain. And our natural example is the joy of conceiving a child, and then you wind up on the labor table, and sometimes that is not too pleasant an experience. But the Scripture says, In the morning, when you have a man child, all that passes away. Hallelujah.
I can see how Christians that do not have this understanding can be very confused. I have seen some people frustrated as to how certain Christians seem to have such a pleasant, joyous life, while others have very difficult times. It depends on your spiritual age, brethren. The children play, but the adults fight. And war is grievous. But the end of your warfare, when it is accomplished, is everlasting life. Hallelujah.
PASTOR VITALE: Did I answer your question?
Love Covers A Multitude Of Sins
The second question that was asked is the phrase, Love covers a multitude of sins. We see that in the Proverbs. I may be mistaken about that. Love covers a multitude of sins. We find some believers thinking this Scripture to mean that we are to hide people's sins when they sin, that we are not to talk about it. It is to become a state secret. Do not anybody look at it; do not anybody talk about it. Therefore, do not anybody be accountable for it, and let us make believe it is not there. I have another name for it. It is called denial, and denial is never of God. This is a misunderstanding in the Church.
It is the love of God which covers a multitude of sins, brethren, the agape love of the Lord Jesus Christ. The agape love of the Lord Jesus Christ is in the Kingdom of God. When the Kingdom of God covers over your carnal mind, where all your sin is emanating from, and when the Kingdom of God binds that sin up to Himself and brings the carnal mind into submission, that is the love of God covering over your sin, bringing you to a condition of sinlessness known as full stature. That is acceptable to God.
The error that we see, or one of the errors that we see in the Church today, is because people do not understand. They try to cover over sin. They try to cover over the sins of someone's carnal mind with their own carnal mind. And there is only death in that.
Let me say it again. When the agape love of the Lord Jesus Christ covers over your sin, that is the same thing as saying that the love of God can purify you from sin. When the love of God covers you, He gives you the ability to stop sinning, and then you ascend to a high place in Christ. But when the love of man attempts to cover over somebody's sin, the love of man does not have the power to raise you up to sinlessness. And what is righteous when God does it becomes sin when man tries to do it.
I do not think I have reached you. I do not know how else to put this. Father, tell me how else to put this.
There are three different Greek words that are translated love. The love of God is called agape love. The love of man, also known as brotherly love, is called philia love. And love between the sexes is called eros, physical love. The Scripture says the love of God, which is in Christ, covers over the sin-filled carnal mind. The result is that the sin-filled carnal mind stops sinning, and the person stops dying. Are you with me?
Let me say it again. When the agape love of God; first of all, it has to be born in you. The Kingdom of God must be within you. When He covers over the sins of your carnal mind, the effect of that is that your carnal mind stops sinning, and you stop dying. But if you do not have the love of God, if it is the philia love of man, the brotherly love which comes out of your carnal mind, when you use that to try and cover over your sin, that is the same thing as saying you are covering over sin with other sins that are not quite as bad. And it does not produce everlasting life.
And the interpretation of this Scripture in the Church, which says do not talk about your brother's sin, is a complete misunderstanding because, when Jesus comes to cover over your sins, He points them out, and He exposes them, and He rips them out of you. But when you come with brotherly love to cover them over, you go into denial, which is death.
And I do not think that I reached you, but that is the best I can do right now. There is an incredible anointing in this room. I am getting slain in my own meeting.
COMMENT: I see that cloud.
PASTOR VITALE: I am getting slain. You see the cloud? I cannot even keep my eyes open.
COMMENT: I saw that. Yes. [INAUDIBLE]
PASTOR VITALE: Yeah. There are some nights that I see it. I do not see it tonight because I can barely keep my eyes open. Hallelujah.
PRAYER
Thank You for your presence, Lord. Thank You for Your glorious presence. We praise You, Lord. Thank You for your visitation, Father. We thank You for Your Spirit, which says that you make a table for us in the presence of our enemies, Lord. In another place, it says, Father, that the enemies are as many as the hairs on our head. Our spiritual enemies are as many as the hairs on our head.
I would like to pray for every member of this fellowship, Father. I pray for every plant that You have planted here, Lord, for every person that You have placed here. I pray for your best for them, Lord. I pray that sin should be destroyed in them, O God, and that Christ should be perfected in them. I forgive their sins, Lord, and I pray for a tremendous and powerful move of Your Spirit, which will help to perfect them. I pray that You teach us to love one another, Lord, and to submit to one another.
I pray that every sin should be defeated. I utterly condemn rebellion and pride and envy and lust in this fellowship. Every form of incest and other ungodly work, I curse you down to the pits of hell. I rebuke witchcraft and mind control, rage and murder. I strip you of your power. I command you to bend your knee to Christ.
I bless everyone here, Lord. And I pray that you help us, Father, and that You help me to be a wise and loving judge. I pray that You perfect my ministry to these people, Lord, and that You help me to meet their needs, and that You get me through this intensely difficult time that I seem to be facing.
I remind You of Your promise to me, Lord, that You will never leave me, you will never forsake me, and that you would not give me more than I could bear. I pray that You make me all that I can be and that I lead this group to the fullest level of maturity that You would allow me to, Lord. I just pray that You raise up people to hold up my arms, Lord, that You heal my wounds and that You grant me the ability to forgive my enemies and pray for those who despitefully use me.
I pray that Your purposes be fully accomplished in this ministry, Lord, and that we go all the way, Lord, that the Devil should not have dominion over us, Lord, but that we should rule and prevail over this world as You have ordained that we should from the beginning of time. I pray that every tongue risen up against us should be proven wrong. Jesus. Thank You, Father. Have mercy on us, O God. We are just dust. Thank you, Lord, in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus.
I just ask for healing of deep, deep spiritual wounds, Lord, the breaking of curses, healing from infirmities, Father. I pray for healing from mental disorders, emotional disorders, spiritual disorders. I continue to pray for healing from Down's syndrome for Xxxx. Thank you, Lord. Touch us, O God. Heal our flesh, Lord. Heal our souls. O God, deliver us from sin in the midst of us. Thank you, Father. Make a way where there is no way, Lord. Thank You, Jesus. Get us through, Lord, this horrendous series of trials. Jesus. Jesus.
PROPHECY
Thou shalt have many tomorrows, saith the Lord. Thou shalt have many tomorrows in many different phases, saith God, for I have much for thee to do. I have much to show thee. I have much to teach thee. And I have much love for thee, saith the Lord. I shall show thee much love. I shall teach thee all about love, saith the Lord. I shall show you the love of God, and you shall experience true love. And that which was a counterfeit shall vanish from your life, saith the Lord, for when the reality comes, the shadow shall pass away, and thou shalt know me, saith the Lord, and I shall know thee. And we shall know one another. Thou shalt have many tomorrows, saith the Lord, and the past shall be but a dream.
The Lord says, The spirit of David is upon you. You shall dance for joy. You shall dance in my presence, saith the Lord. There shall be much joy and much rejoicing. I have already slain the fatted calf for you, saith the Lord.
Transcribed by VerbalFusion 07/21/21
1st Edit, rh, 8/2/21
